Episode 6: A Marriage of Opposites

Love token from Ned to his wife Emily.

In his mid 20s, Lutyens fell passionately in love with Lady Emily Lytton, daughter of the Earl Lytton, a diplomat and Viceroy of India who had really wanted to be a poet.   He pursued her ardently, writing letters that were romantic, delightful and often funny.  Beating down opposition from Lady Emily’s family, they got marriage in 1897 but were an unlikely couple.  She hated bearing children and domesticity.  He was often away from home, on an endless round of visits to clients, country houses and building sites.  Frustrated and feeling neglected, Emily found spiritual satisfaction in the newly invented religion of Theosophy, falling hook, line and sinker for its beautiful Indian world leader, Jiddu Krishnamurti — an embarrassment for Lutyens when he was designing the Viceroy’s House and laying out the new capital of the Raj, New Delhi.  In middle age the architect developed an intimate relationship with the rich and domineering Lady Sackville.  And yet husband and wife never ceased to be close, as their letters attest.

In this week’s episode Clive and John examine the role that Lady Emily played in Lutyens’s life and vice-versa, with all the joys and heartache, frustration and rhapsodic moments of this singular marriage.